I originally posted this on INFP but felt like it ended up more as an offmychest!

VERY LONG. I’m so sorry. If you take the time to read this, you mean so much to me. If you don’t, I understand!

I’m not sure if this is an INFP thing or just a me thing, but I tend to carry around the pain that my parents have gone through more than my sisters do. It makes me be more grateful and resilient in a way. I won’t complain about things others do. But I’ll go through periods when it drags me down and I drown in pain.

I few things that I’ve learned about my parents growing up, that due to my vivid imagination, burn into my head: My parents are from a 3rd world country. My mother lost her mother at 11. Her dad had already left her family. She was raised by her half sister who is very much a grandmother to me. I guess due to this my mom wasn’t really able to talk to me. Even my sister was the one to teach me about periods and where babies come from, etc. She’s 7 years older than me. My father left school around the 2nd grade to work and would often take care of his younger brother. In all he ended up having 11 siblings. When my dad was 7ish, his brother was about 5. He was home alone building a fence. When his mother got home my dad went to look for his brother and he found him crouched over, dead. He had been sick a few days, dysentery. My dad tells stories of how his brother was very bright and even tried once to walk by himself to the river to find my dad and grandmother when they were gone washing clothes. Unfortunately he didn’t understand that the river wasn’t just ONE spot lol. And on his way there, a group of men hanging around told him to sit wit them until his mom came back through. My dad has told me that when he cooks eggs, he often thinks of his little brother and how he would beg to have a WHOLE egg. As in there was so little food to go around, they had to share one egg. My grandfather was an alcoholic who would leave to pay off their debt and come home having gambled it all. My father to this day is the more responsible one and would try to fix things when he was older. After his little brother passed away, he would sometimes stay at a childcare(ish) place where there was a painting of little angels. One of them looked like his little brother and he would beg for it to talk to him.

When my dad came to this country, he faced deportation. With plans of coming back, he said he was from Mexico (he’s not) and wandered Mexico alone until he figured out a way to get back. My dad worked odd jobs, sometimes for $5 a day, spending $5 on gas in my uncle’s car. Ultimately after he became documented, he worked on construction sites building freeways until he got cancer in 2003. He’s been fighting it on and off since I was 8. He is disabled but does odd jobs and is very much a DIY guy. He’ll try everything once and neighbors often seek his help with their projects. There was a year that he had gotten hurt a number of times and my sister recalls him saying “I think my angel died.” He’s gone through many near death experiences including almost driving off a cliff and having break failure. My dad has lost his hair twice from chemo and when I was in high school, was unable to pick me up from the airport (I won a trip to France) because he ended up in the ER from an infection. My parents haven’t gotten along as long as I can remember and they are just now in process of a divorce. They’ve always been different but I think one of the many things that tore them apart was when (my mom was pregnant with me) my dad’s youngest brother abused my older sister. He was eventually deported and was sent to prison in his home country for rape of a young woman there. He’s a waste of life and I wish that my dad’s little brother was the one who lived. The weird thing is that my older half brother is very close to him. They are about the same age and grew up together before my brother moved to the US. These are a few things that weigh on me and I’m sorry this is long. This also really wasn’t the point but I wanted to explain a bit the things I generally carry with me.

The point: recently I’ve felt overwhelmed. I went back to school for a graduate certificate and I’m taking one class, which sucks. The assignments are bogus and take hours per day during a week. I spent all of Saturday indoors working on it because it was a beautiful day. But I feel like I’m wasting my time with school and that this certification will mean nothing. I recently moved to a new store for work and I feel so out of place. I was at my last one for 5 years. It makes it hard to want to go work (it’s also at 4AM). And sometimes I just DONT want to go. I know oftentimes people who are depressed or going through things miss out on their obligations and I WISH I was that person and It frustrates me because I still go. It’s in my blood and obligation because my parents have always ALWAYS been hard workers regardless of how shitty things are. My mom is in her 60s and a housekeeper. She never misses work and often works holidays. I live 3 hours away from all of my family. My husband’s mom invited my family to come so I asked my mom. She is off on Thursday and Friday but seemed hesitant just because she doesn’t want to. My mom is an anxious person and hardly strays from her routine or tries new things and it really hurts because I feel alone. Although I know she does too. She left the house she’s lived in for 25 years during this divorce. And shes alone. She refuses to get real furniture in the apartment because she doesn’t want to stay there because it’s too expensive (again she hasn’t paid rent in years and this is actually a decent price but seems insane to her). She is workaholic I guess to drown out her pain and troubles. But she forgets about my feelings and I even had a meltdown on her about a year ago. She would constantly call me to talk about my dad and want me to spy on him. It was obsessive and killing me. But I’ve always had a fear of my parents dying (I guess the cancer thing at 8) so I try to talk to them when they call. Woops I digress. My husband has a job where he is gone for 10 days and then back for 4, then leaves for 10 again etc. I was recently applying to become an officer in the Air Force but my medical stuff messed it all up and I had already spent so much time taking my physical and studying for the test. I wanted to tell my husband how I’ve been feeling but didn’t have a chance to speak to him in the phone. He gets back on Wednesday’s but he was going to stay with his parents until Friday because he had plans with his dad and a dinner with his workmates. He asked me to come but I can’t because I work at 4 the next day. Then on Sunday his friends are having a Friendsgiving and I also can’t go because I work at 4 on Monday. He was pretty down about that and it bothered me too because I’m not even getting many hours at work. I just coincidentally work those days. I’m not making much money and I’m taking 2 classes next semester which I’m scared is a waste especially because I’m nervous something will happen to my car. It made a weird noise the other day and it’s 15 years old so I’m starting to have to fix a lot of things that I’ve never had to. I don’t trust any mechanics around here.

So yesterday I started having kind of suicidal idealizations. Not even that, just the unwillingness to live, but not the willingness to kill myself. I don’t know what I wanted to do but I was thinking about who to ask to care for my dog. It was bothering me that I hadn’t told my SO any of this and he called me during his lunch break. I felt better (not good) after I spoke to him. But it was weird coincidences too. While I was thinking these things, my sister sent me a photo of my nephew and I. And my dad called me. I hardly tell him how I feel but things are changing (I told him I loved him once when I was 16 and he said thank you, me too. Then once we said it to each other when he dropped me off at the dorms 7 years ago. In the last years we’ve gotten to saying it every time we talk). He told me he’d felt that way too (within reason) and tried to talk me through things and how he can help me with money. If it’s not obvious my parents still don’t make good money so I don’t ask really.

I got home from class last night at10. When I got here my husband had come home. I was happy to see him but I felt weird and didn’t want to talk (I’m usually a jovial person and always greet people with excitement) because I just felt guilty that he left work a day early because of me. Then what prompted me to write this was that his mother called me. Her and my sister in law have a trip planned up to Minnesota next month. I’m not sure what all my husband told her but she wanted me to go with them and was buying me a flight. They are not rich but very family oriented. They’ll often eat dinner out together while I ate in a restaurant maybe 6 times growing up. His family is really different. I’ve been wanting to take a trip somewhere as I’ve felt trapped and I’ll often go on trips alone or wit my husband. But it’s been a few months of new transitions that I hadn’t gotten to. I told her I didn’t want her to pay for it and invite me because of the way I’ve been feeling. She doesn’t take no for an answer and went on a long talk about how much I mean to them and my husband and how I’m a great person (I’m okay) but it still makes me feel guilty. That my husband came home and that they’re trying to fit me in their plans because I’m having trouble living this life that isn’t even that hard. The life that parents parents struggled so much to give me. I know it should make me feel better that people care, but it makes me feel worse.